Steve Jobs is an audacious and detailed character study in three acts that paints its subject as an egomaniac, an inspired visionary and a neglectful father with the same meticulous brushstrokes.

Scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, who collected an Academy Award for The Social Network, deserves to add another golden statuette to the mantelpiece for his exemplary work here.

He explores violently clashing facets of Jobs’ personality through the prism of three key product launches in 1984, 1988 and 1998 respectively.

Each chapter unfolds at a breathless pace, established by Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue, and cinematographer Alwin Kuchler cleverly conjures the mood by shooting on different film stocks: 16mm, 35mm and digital.

Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet are mesmerising as Jobs and his right-hand woman, who take very different approaches to management.

In the first section, Steve (Fassbender) prepares to launch the first Mackintosh flanked by marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Winslet), one of the few people that tolerates his outbursts.

“We blow this and IBM will own the next 50 years like a Batman villain!” he seethes.

Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) watches from the wings.

In the second chapter, set four years later, Steve continues to clash with his first girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), who claims that he is the father of her daughter.

“Things don’t become so because you say so,” she snaps, as Jobs prepares to launch The Cube, which he knows will be “the biggest single failure in the history of personal computing”.

Bitter defeat turns into sweet personal triumph in the final act as Steve returns to the Apple fold, ousts Sculley from his perch and prepares to dazzle the world with the iMac.

Rivalries simmer and co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) reminds Steve that being in charge doesn’t come at the expense of good manners.

“It’s not binary – you can be decent and gifted at the same time,” laments Wozniak.

Steve Jobs is another artistic triumph for Boyle. His camera glides along corridors as the protagonist barks orders, demanding perfection.

Excellence behind the camera would mean nothing without pyrotechnics on screen and Fassbender lights the fuse on his own Oscar chances with a scintillating portrayal of Jobs, who likens himself to a conductor.

“Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra,” he coolly tells his inner circle.

Glimpsed through Boyle’s unflinching and sometimes unflattering lens, Jobs played his talented orchestra until their fingers bled while he barely broke sweat.

5/5

Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings star in The Lady in the Van

THE LADY IN THE VAN (12A)

Teasingly billed as “a mostly true story”, The Lady In The Van is an entertaining screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s award-winning 1999 play, based on his experiences of a sharp-tongued vagrant called Miss Shepherd, who camped outside his driveway for more than 15 years.

The playwright has lovingly adapted his stage work, employing the same cute theatrical device of the real Alan and an internal self, both played with warmth and wit by Alex Jennings, who endlessly pontificate on the tramp’s shady past as they mooch about a north London home.

Dame Maggie Smith reprises her eye-catching stage role as the eponymous tramp, unleashing an array of withering putdowns that would surely have her imperious Dowager in Downton Abbey clucking with approval.

It’s a tour-de-force performance from the national treasure.

Alan (Jennings) moves into a house in Camden. Soon after, a cantankerous woman called Miss Shepherd (Smith) settles in the street in her van.

When council bureaucracy threatens the old woman’s future, the playwright foolishly agrees to let her take up temporary residence on his driveway for a few weeks.

Months turn into years and the playwright despairs as he becomes Miss Shepherd’s guardian and suffers visits from social services worker Miss Briscoe (Cecilia Noble).

When a police officer called Underwood (Jim Broadbent) begins to harass the old woman, Alan speculates about her former life.

Director Nicholas Hytner, who helmed the Olivier Award-nominated stage production, reunites with his leading lady with relish.

He also includes cameos for most of the cast of The History Boys, his last collaboration with Bennett, including James Corden as a market trader.